Lawyer for family says City Hall overstepped
A landowner with property bordering Taylor scored a victory at this week’s City Council meeting after municipal officials acted to end litigation sparked by the annexation of his land.
The upshot: Property belonging to Rob Marek will be removed from the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction based on the council’s decision Thursday after years of a legal tug of war.
The case dates to 2018 after Taylor annexed the rural property in the Windy Ridge Road area, yet provided no tangible municipal services to the Marek family or neighbors.
On Thursday, council members emerged from an executive session at their meeting and announced approval of a settlement agreement with Marek.
Reached on his cellphone, Marek declined to comment.
“I’d rather not make a statement at this time until I have more information,” he said Friday.
City Hall officials also begged off on providing further information.
“Due to the case still pending and no agreements finalized, we are not able to comment on the details of the case at this time,” city spokesman Daniel Seguin told the Taylor Press via an email.
Chris Johns, the attorney who represented Marek, was more forthcoming.
He said the city agreed to enter into a settlement agreement after the Marek family accepted a reduction to the $78,259 in attorney’s fees a district court previously ruled it was owed in its annexation fight.
“I’m very pleased for my clients,” John said during a telephone interview. “Now, they can decide what they can do with their land. This gives them the freedom to use their assets how they see fit, and I’m for the family.”
In the legal tussle, the city had claimed existing development agreements with the landowners meant City Hall did not have to release them from the ETJ — a stance that a state district court ruling contradicted when it sided with the landowners.
“The city was overstepping, and using it to regulate land use,” Johns said of the municipality’s use of development agreements to maintain its control. “They took it too far.”
The attorney’s Austin-based law firm Cobb & Johns has been retained by numerous clients across Texas seeking what amounts to “disannexation” from cities.
The disannexation trend began in earnest in 2019, aided by the Legislature. That year, state lawmakers passed House Bill 347 requiring consent from residents or property owners before annexation could occur.
Prior to that, home-rule cities were able to annex areas unilaterally.
Even as his list of clients seeking disannexation grew, Johns said it all began in Taylor.
In many ways, the municipality bears all the characteristics making it ripe to seek annexation while facing challenges from owners, including residents who moved to a rural area to escape the “big city,” only later to experience brisk development in their midst.
As Taylor continues to grow — spurred by development of a massive Samsung Austin Semiconductor plant with its ancillary subcontractors — the ingredients for annexation readily align.
“Cities can be the most lawless entities,” Johns said.
